Coaching Up or Coaching Out
Maximize Service Capacity and the Bottom Line by Coaching Up Your Middle Performers
Michael Flora, MBA, M.A.ED, LCPC
Senior Operations and Management Consultant - MTM Services
[email protected]
Middle performers are the unsung heroes of every
organization. While high and low performers get most of the
attention, middle performers typically make-up 60-70% of the
workforce, and are critical to your organization’s success.
But too often, they’re taken for granted and underutilized. Too
many managers just don’t know what to do with these team
members, understand their potential, or how to motivate them
to peak performance.
To better understand how to manage Middle Performers we
must first understand what constitutes low performance.
How does your company effectively manage low performers?
Most managers are unwilling to deal head on with low
performers and the conflict they “think will occur.”
What constitutes low performance? • Failing to meet performance expectations
• Negative attitude
• Trouble maker
• Blames others
• Lacks initiative
• Incompetent
We have all heard that managers spend 80% of their time
trying to manage the 20% of poor performers. While some
low performers lack skills, most display a difficult attitude
and do not take responsibility to change their work behavior.
Managers should be spending time coaching and reinforcing
the other 80% of staff who are successfully meeting the
standards and goals of the company.
As leaders we must make the tough decisions. The low
performer has already made the decision to leave the
organization by not meeting expectations and not behaving in
a professional manner. These lower performers have resigned
they just haven’t told you yet. So why do we spend so much
time with them? Jack Welch said once that he expected his
managers to “coach out” 20% of low performers each year.
As this occurs, what remains? The mean becomes mid to
high performers. The steps for ensuring that you have the
right staff with the right skills at the right time are fairly
straightforward:
1. Conduct an assessment of the competencies and
knowledge requirements for critical executive,
management and line positions - for the present and
for your business’ long-term strategic future.
2. Assess current employee performance, capabilities,
and potential along these dimensions.
3. Develop a plan to either buy or build the
competencies you need for organizational success.
When the overwhelming majority of employees say that
working with low performers makes them want to quit their
jobs, leaders should accept this as a ‘wake-up call’ and tackle
this issue immediately. If low performers start dictating the
company’s culture, productivity, quality and service will all
decline, and high performers will avoid your company as an
employer of choice.
Coach up your middle performers. Middle performers
want to do well; they need goals and assistance with time
management, understanding how daily performance,
aptitude and attitude are keys to success. Reward your top
performers and coach out your low performers who are
not willing to improve.
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Page 4
For companies that can turn this around there is a strong
competitive advantage. Under healthcare reform they can
increase service capacity and the bottom line. To succeed,
managers and supervisors need to understand the culture they
desire. As Stephen Covey puts it, begin with the end in mind.
The issue of low performers must be addressed as this is a
constant reflection on the quality of the products, goods and
services being provided.
the distractions in the environment that are keeping them
meeting the organizations expectations. Think of your work
environment and the organizational culture. What motivates
you, what motivates your employees?
Rewarding achievement toward agency
expectations
Through our work with providers across the country the
main issue that keeps coming up is how to reward middle and
high performers and still maintain equity in the system.
In working with organizations, I like to take a look at their “Excess
Service Capacity.” By thinking with the end in mind, we can come
to terms of how much excess capacity we have by team members
not performing at optimal levels.
The answer is easy. Be fair, not equal.
By providing specific performance expectations and the rewards
and sanctions that go along with the achievement of or lack of
performance. All members of the team have the ability to achieve
optimal performance.
The figure below illustrates that this sample organization has
excess capacity of 67.63 out of 111.5 FTEs and that this excess
capacity is costing them $9,567,400 in lost revenue. In our
current environment we can no longer afford to not focus on
capacity and we must assist our middle performers to meet goal
as well as try to bring the lower 20% up to goal.
In my work with providers, they give the same 3% COLA to everyone,
regardless of their contribution to the agency achieving goals. Middle
and High performers
become
disgruntled
Now we can see how low
While
some
low
performers
lack
skills,
most
display
with this model, as they
performers as well as No
realize very quickly that
a difficult attitude and do not take responsibility
Shows, unscheduled time,
they are achieving or are
client and staff cancels,
to change their work behavior. Managers should
close to the goal while
lack of engagement
be spending time coaching and reinforcing the
others are not. They say:
and long wait times to
other 80% of staff who are successfully meeting the
“Why should I work so
access care are impacting
standards
and
goals
of
the
company.
hard when the guy in the
our ability to serve our
cubicle next to me gets the
communities. Our task
same raise as I do?”
is to motivate teams to
optimal performance. To coach them through the individual and
By varying the level of merit increases based on the
systemic barriers that are impacting their ability to be successful.
achievement of performance objectives, the middle and top
achievers find the internal motivation to keep them engaged
What Motivates Staff?
in the organization. This also allows you as a manager to
Depending on the culture, the fewer distractions in the document lower performers’ results and move them up or out
workplace, it takes very little reinforcement to keep people on of the organization. By holding staff accountable at all levels
task. If there are a lot of distractions available, it takes a lot of of the organization, morale improves, retention increases, and
reinforcement to keep people focused. As you identify your customer satisfaction improves.
team members
within the middle 60% you will need to identify
REPORT # 3
The key to employee evaluation and reward is by breaking
35 hour work week, 65% performance, Includes PSR
Current Staff Variances
Excess
Service
Capacity
Name of Center: SAMPLE AGENCY
as of 6-30 2012 Available Service Capacity Summary
FTE
Program
Program 1
Program 2
Program 3
Program 4
Program 5
Program 6
Program 7
Program 8
Program 9
Medical Team ( MD/APN/NP) @ 70%
Total Unrealized Capacity
Therapist/CM @ 65% of Available Time
MD/APN % 70% of Available Time
On Staff
13
7.5
24
11
11
15
7
9
10
4
111.5
1352
1456
Monthly
Standard
Direct Time
Available
1,464.67
910.00
2,704.00
1,239.33
1,239.33
1,690.00
788.67
1,014.00
1,126.67
485.33
12,662.00
Fiscal Year: JUL 1st - JUN 30th
Actual Billable
Unrealized
Hrs Delivered Srvc Capacity
103.20
(1,361.47)
312.95
(597.05)
353.09
(2,350.91)
165.49
(1,073.84)
255.81
(983.52)
3.25
(1,686.75)
62.10
(726.57)
110.00
(904.00)
32.6
(1,094.07)
190.11
(295.22)
1,588.60
(11,073.40)
Complete Light Blue cells only
12 Months Ending
YTD Billable
YTD Actual
Total Y-T-D
Direct Time
Available
17,576.00
10,920.00
32,448.00
14,872.00
14,872.00
20,280.00
9,464.00
12,168.00
13,520.00
5,824.00
151,944.00
Billable Hrs
11,673.00
5,674.00
16,794.00
8,473.00
6,397.00
2,567.00
1,254.00
2,635.00
1,567.00
2,896.00
59,930.00
Unrealized Cap
(5,903.00)
(5,246.00)
(15,654.00)
(6,399.00)
(8,475.00)
(17,713.00)
(8,210.00)
(9,533.00)
(11,953.00)
(2,928.00)
(92,014.00)
Jun-12
FTE
Equiv
(4.37)
(3.60)
(11.58)
(4.73)
(6.27)
(13.10)
(6.07)
(7.05)
(8.84)
(2.01)
(67.63)
Annualized
Annualized
Annualized
Cost of
Hours
Available
Unrealized CAP FTE Equiv
Unrealized Cap
17,576.00
(5,903.00)
(4.37) $
(590,300)
10,920.00
(5,246.00)
(3.60) $
(524,600)
32,448.00
(15,654.00)
(11.58) $
(1,565,400)
14,872.00
(6,399.00)
(4.73) $
(639,900)
14,872.00
(8,475.00)
(6.27) $
(847,500)
20,280.00
(17,713.00)
(13.10) $
(1,771,300)
9,464.00
(8,210.00)
(6.07) $
(821,000)
12,168.00
(9,533.00)
(7.05) $
(953,300)
13,520.00
(11,953.00)
(8.84) $
(1,195,300)
5,824.00
(2,928.00)
(2.01) $
(658,800)
151,944.00
(92,014.00)
(67.63) $
(9,567,400)
Annualized Cost of
Rate per
service
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Unrealized Cap
(590,300)
(524,600)
(1,565,400)
(639,900)
(847,500)
(1,771,300)
(821,000)
(953,300)
(1,195,300)
(658,800)
(9,567,400)
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
225.00
Rates are based on average Rates for one hour of service
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Page 5
down employees into three categories. High Performers, Middle
Performers and Low Performers. As a manager you already know
which of your team fits into each category. We spend too much time
on the Low Performers in our organizations. Now the challenge is
to coach up the Middle Performers to High Performers and to
reward and stay out of the way of the High Performers!!!
High Performers: These employees consistently exceed
expectations. Your role is to celebrate them and give them
opportunities for success. Highlight their performance. Make
sure they have the tools to do their jobs (laptops, tablets, etc.).
Have them be mentors to middle or low performers.
Middle Performers: These team members have some
of the qualities of High Performer performance but have
inconsistent follow through on a daily basis. There is some
systemic or individual area of performance that they struggle
with that creates their inability to achieve optimal performance.
Encourage them, point out areas of improvement, pair them
with a High Performer mentor, develop short term solution
plans and review their performance data with them in order to
define and resolve barriers to optimal consistent performance.
Low Performers: Fortune Magazine has said failure to
effectively manage low performers is the #1 reason why
leaders fail and lose their jobs and 87% of employees
say working with a low performer has decreased their
productivity, hampered their development, and made them
want to change jobs.
No matter how many resources and amount of coaching
you provide for your low performing team members,
they are not usually interested in meeting the agency
performance expectations. They have usually been placed
on plans of correction multiple times and are frequently
not meeting goals. Their attitude and negativity tend to
impact the entire team. These are the team members that
would be better coached out of the organization as they are
not a good fit for the new expectations.
I have always said that a good employee can find a job anywhere.
If top employees move on, what is the organization left with?
By identifying what motivates team members, having consistent
performance expectations and the right amount of motivation and
rewards in the system, your organization can move from merely
surviving to thriving in the new healthcare environment.
About the author: Michael Flora, MBA, M.A.Ed,
LCPC is the Senior Operation’ and Management
Consultant for MTM Services and a National Council
Senior Consultant. Mr. Flora is the CEO of a multimillion
dollar behavioral healthcare organization and its four
subsidiaries, and a renowned consultant, speaker, and
author. He has extensive experience in strategic planning,
marketing, performance improve¬ment, workforce
development, leadership coaching and training, board
gover¬nance, and healthcare mergers and acquisitions.
He has been recognized as Behavioral Health Champion
and his organization is a recipient of the SAMSHA
Science and Service Award for prevention programs.
He has over 25 years of clinical and administrative
experience. Consult engagement scheduling and copies
of his current featured book Co-Authored with other
MTM Services experts Operationalizing Health Reform
may be arranged through contacting the National Council
at thenationalcouncil.org or by calling 202-684-7457.
www.thenationalcouncil.org/mtm-services
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